Despite the fact that vaccine efficacy has been extensively proven and accepted by the scientific community, eleven European nations have implemented obligatory vaccination programmes due to vaccine reluctance. In Europe, little emphasis has been paid to the research of media impacts on vaccination uptake. To investigate the relationship between children vaccination rates in Spain and vaccine-related coverage in the print media was the purpose of this study. A content study of vaccination coverage in newspapers was carried out. National vaccination rates, article publication dates, tone, and major subject of the pieces were the study factors. The researchers used a correlation analysis to determine the relationship between media coverage and children vaccination uptake. While positive and neutral vaccination coverage grew considerably over the research period, the number of stories with a negative tone remained steady. Negative media coverage was found to have a substantial and unfavourable relationship with children vaccination uptake. Despite a decrease in media coverage, vaccination rates continued to rise. The most often mentioned topics were the creation of the Ebola vaccine, as well as the chickenpox and meningitis vaccine crisis.
The findings contribute to a better understanding of the function of the media in vaccination efforts and imply that the media should be regarded as an essential actor during vaccination programmes. The study emphasises the media’s crucial educational role in public health.
Reference: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21645515.2019.1708163
